"Unsaid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... commanding, and queen-like. She was grande dame jusqu' au bout des doights, as much as if she had just left the salons of London and Paris, refined in manner, nor did she ever utter a word you could wish unsaid. She spoke nine languages perfectly, and could read and write in them. She lived half the year in Damascus and half with her husband in his Bedawin tents, she like any other Bedawin woman, but honoured and respected as the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... in my life I had sense to keep my tongue still; for, if I had spoken, I must have let bolt some impetuous thing better left unsaid. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... of telling him she had never treated any other man as she had treated him, but I thought best to leave it unsaid. Trouble was apt to come of its own accord ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... Reputation ever tearing, Ever dearest friendship swearing; Judgment weak, and passion strong, Always various, always wrong; Provocation never waits, Where he loves, or where he hates; Talks whate'er comes in his head; Wishes it were all unsaid. Let me now the vices trace, From the father's scoundrel race. Who could give the looby such airs? Were they masons, were they butchers? Herald, lend the Muse an answer From his atavus and grandsire:[1] This was dexterous at ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... what was possible to leave unsaid to a woman? She was very angry, though she was also a little sorry for him; for perhaps in the long run he would be in the right. But he must ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and see to the children's dinner without paying for the service, and she could not afford to pay. By listening to the women as they talked and by chance remarks from which he could deduce much that was left unsaid, Philip learned how little there was in common between the poor and the classes above them. They did not envy their betters, for the life was too different, and they had an ideal of ease which made the existence of the middle-classes ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... unjust." His tone softened again. "I know what it means, to say that I love you—it is my life, this love. I have known it a long time. It has been on my lips to say it for weeks, and since it has been said, it cannot be unsaid. A moment ago you told me not to doubt you. I do not. And now you say that we must not love each other, as though we had a choice to make—and why? Because you once made ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... appeared not in one century only, in Spain, Italy, and Germany, was also in this year seen and recognised as the same individual who had appeared in Hamburg, anno MDLXVI. The common people, bold in spreading reports, relate many things of him; and this I allude to, lest anything should be left unsaid." ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... him with deep interest. She had asked herself the question a hundred times how much she could tell him—what to say and what to leave unsaid. One glance at his calm, intellectual face was enough. He was a man of striking appearance, six feet tall, forty-five years of age, hair prematurely gray and a slight stoop to his broad shoulders. His brown eyes seemed to enfold the old ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... ecclesiastical censure but of the opinion of old and valued friends; a perpetual uncertainty as to the limits of Catholic liberty; these things had held him in bondage. What ought he say? What must he leave unsaid? He understood perfectly that hypothesis must not be stated as truth. But the vast accumulation of biological fact on the one hand, and of historical criticism on the other, that has become the common property of the scientific mind, how was it to be recapitulated—within Catholic limits? ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his words and conduct look as bad as possible. The slanderer is worse than a thief and causes incalculable suffering and misery. [Prov. 25:18, Jas. 3:5-8] We should remember that words once spoken live on for good or evil, and cannot be unsaid; and that we must give an account to God for every word we speak. ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... portable and pocketed library rather greasily preserved, some patch of picture of a saving as distinguished from a losing classicism. The point remains for me that when all was said—and even with everything that might directly have counted unsaid—he discharged for me such an office that I was to remain to this far-off hour in a state of possession of him that is the very opposite of a blank: quite after the fashion again in which I had all along and elsewhere ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... understand how much she is to me," he thought. "Those are the things that are better unsaid. At least I always think so when she's here. But all these months—I wonder whether girls like you to say things, or to leave them to be understood. It is more delicate not ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... undertake it," Mannering said, "it would be to leave unsaid the things which you would naturally expect from me, and to say things of which you could not possibly approve. I am very sorry. You can command my resignation at any moment, if you will. But my views, though in the main they have not ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... apprehended not,—let be the meaning of words but,—the intention of depraved minds and would suffer Himself, after the fashion of men, to be duped by the names of things. All this, together with much else which must be left unsaid, was supremely displeasing to the Jew, who was a sober and modest man, and himseeming he had seen enough, he determined to return to ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... you ought to stay here and see things through. You tell me this is right and this is not right—how do you know? I owe you very much—but ought you to decide everything for me? Let me also be the judge. If there's any problem in these matters, anything unsaid, let's face it all. Cut into my eyes, but don't cut into my soul any more. If you gave me back my sight, and did not give me back every unsettled problem, with all the facts before me to settle it at last, you would leave me with unhappiness hanging over me as long as ever ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... sake of dear peace, well and good—but one thing I cannot leave unsaid. Soft-hearted weakness is not usually your defect, but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... short pause, during which young Marston fidgeted about and looked concerned, as if he had something to say which he would fain leave unsaid, Mrs. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... reader, has your Teufelsdroeckh forgotten what he said lately about 'Aboriginal Savages,' and their 'condition miserable indeed'? Would he have all this unsaid; and us betake ourselves again to the 'matted cloak,' and go sheeted in a 'thick ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... her flowers!" said Sam,—"you needn't all laugh so. I don't mean either that I didn't mean—" but what more he meant Sam left unsaid, which did not much stay ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... illume Love, with strange children at her piteous breast, By grace of weakness from the grave-mouthed gloom Plucked, and by mercy lulled to living rest, Soft as the nursling's nigh the grandsire's tomb That fell on sleep, a bird of rifled nest; Soft as the lips whose smile unsaid the doom That gave their sire to violent death's arrest. Even for such love's sake strong, Wrath fires the inveterate song That bids hell gape for one whose bland mouth blest All slayers and liars that sighed Prayer as they slew and lied Till blood had clothed his priesthood as a vest, ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... hollow of a hand. His lips parted as if he were about to speak. Then, he bade defiance to the impulse. He deemed it safer for all that he should say nothing—now!... And it is very easy to say a word too many. And that one may be a word never to be unsaid—or gainsaid. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... much risk by allowing sentence to go for or against them according as Mr. Darwin has or has not succeeded in his attempt to explain that evidence away. Possibly he may disclaim having made any attempt of the kind, and I must admit that it is less by what he says than by what he leaves unsaid, that he lays himself open to the charge. Indeed, in almost all he says on the subject, I myself cordially agree, embracing even some of his views with less of hesitation than he seems to have felt in putting them forward. He seems to me, for instance, to have somewhat gratuitously ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... repeated Madame von Rosen, 'O, much to say! Much to say that I would rather not, and much to leave unsaid that I would rather say. For I am like St. Paul, your Highness, and always wish to do the things I should not. Well! to be categorical - that is the word? - I took the Prince your order. He could not credit his senses. "Ah," he ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her cause; all this had fallen from her as soon as she felt him near, and she asked him to go away just as any plighted maiden might have asked any favour of her lover. But it was the poor girl's misfortune that whatever she did or said, or left unsaid, only had the effect of making her dearer to him and making the people who were clamouring for her seem more and ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... first I knew the hardy maid Excluded was among her Christian foes, Have followed her to give her timely aid, Or by her side this breath and life to lose, What did I not, or what left I unsaid To make the king the gates again unclose? But he denied, his power did aye restrain My will, my suit was ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... in the vase When once it has sped away? Can you put the corn-silk back on the corn, Or down on the catkins, say? You think my questions are trifling, lad, Let me ask you another one: Can a hasty word be ever unsaid, Or ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... question when you meet Unk Wunk for the first time, you will have twenty after you have studied him for a season or two. His paragraph in the woods' journal begins and ends with a question mark, and a dash for what is left unsaid. ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... getting up at the same time. A glint of silver on the sidewalk back of Mr. Barton caught his eye. It was a half-dollar! Jerry sank to a sitting posture and gazed in rapt wonder at this answer to an unsaid prayer. ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... that he had been close at hand all day without having a word to say to her. How many true and impressive things passed through her mind that she thought she would say to him! But they all remained unsaid. When the opportunity came she saw it to be her duty to serve him by waiting and loving, feeling and trusting that rebuke from God was the only shock which would effectually reach this case, and reserving herself ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... lusty knights and good gazed one upon the other. "One should so train women," spake again Siegfried, the knight, "that they leave haughty words unsaid. Forbid it to thy wife, and I'll do the same to mine. In truth, I do shame me of ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... such epithets in the English language which have not already been applied to him by one writer or another. Yet it is hard to hold one's hand, although humanity would perhaps induce us to pity rather than to revile a man cursed with so unhappy a temperament. But whatever may be said or left unsaid about him personally, the infinite disturbance which he caused cannot be wholly ignored. It was great enough to constitute an important element in history. Covered by the powerful authority of his influential and patriotic family at home, and screened by the profound ignorance of Congress concerning ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... father, and relate instances of his affection for herself, and all his other redeeming traits of character; most thankful to Louis for accepting him on her word, and never uttering one word of him which she could wish unsaid. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to say and what to leave unsaid, without tellings from you; thanks all the same. You needn't fear my saying a word about Mr. Tweddle and Ada—la, now, if I haven't gone and said it! What a stupid I am ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... my place I think that he would have shed more tears. I was myself somewhat dashed, though I knew the prudence that governed her in her most impetuous sallies; still, to avoid the risk of hearing things which we might both afterwards wish unsaid, I came to the point. "I fear that I have timed my visit ill, Madame," I said. "You have some complaint ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... Newport or elsewhere, were as invisible to him as they were to Moses during the forty days that he spent with God on the mount; he was merely thinking of his message,—thinking only how he should shape it, so as not to leave one word of it unsaid,—not even imagining in the least what the result of it was to be. He was but a voice, but an instrument,—the passive instrument through which an almighty will was to reveal itself; and the sublime fatalism of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... wish Martin Holt to be aware that anything had passed between him and Cherry till he could come boldly forward and ask her at her father's hands, having the wherewithal to support her. He had been surprised into an admission of youthful devotion, and he by no means wished the words unsaid; for the secret understanding now existing betwixt himself and Cherry was the sweetest element in his daily life, and he was more and more in love every day with his charming cousin. But he knew that ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... myself," the pen continued, "and ignored the obligations I had accepted. It is for you to choose whether you wish the words of that afternoon unsaid." ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... live to wish those words unsaid, miss," the woman answered primly. "You have as good as sold your birthright, as Esau ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... he was so unconscious of any evil on his part, that he saw nothing to fear beyond a disagreeable interview. And to disagreeable interviews he felt he had already served his apprenticeship that evening; nor could he suppose that Miss Vandeleur had left anything unsaid. Indeed, the young man was sore both in body and mind - the one was all bruised, the other was full of smarting arrows; and he owned to himself that Mr. Vandeleur was master of ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Staveley, frightened by her daughter's manner, and almost fearing that something further was to come which had by far better be left unsaid. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... over the lands, and their greeting was of the most commonplace description. Later, as they rode together across the barren veldt, Burke told her a little of his finding of Guy at Brennerstadt. He did not dwell upon any details, but by much that he left unsaid Sylvia gathered that the task had not ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... wind, night, and wild waters; with certain other elements which not the brain-mind, but the creative soul, would have to supply. In such a symbol there would be an appeal to the imagination—that great Wizard within us—to rise up and supply us with quantities of knowledge left unsaid. Indeed, I am but trying to illustrate an idea, possibilities.... I think there is a power within the human soul to trace back all growths, the most profuse and complex, to the simple seed from which they sprung; or, just as a single rose or pansy bloom is the resultant, the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... captaincy. The man was a mere youth, and in all his life had never fired an arquebus, and was not skilled or experienced in war. On the contrary, he had led a very evil life, which cannot be fittingly described to your Majesty, and so is left unsaid. Accordingly, to give some color to what he desired to do, and in order that he might not appear to be exceeding the said number of four captains, the said governor appointed this man captain of infantry, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... impulsively back to me from his aunts, without stopping to think that we had never yet exchanged a word; both of us were now brought up short, and it was the cake that was speaking volubly in our self-conscious dumbness. It was only after this brief, deep gap of things unsaid that John Mayrant came to the surface again, and began a conversation of which, on both our parts, the first few steps were taken on the tiptoes of an archaic politeness; we trod convention like a polished French floor; ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... command of an army, or any of the numerous things which cause more harm than good: but rather, if they had them not, would have prayed to obtain them. And often in a short space of time they change their tone, and wish their old prayers unsaid. Wherefore also I suspect that men are entirely wrong when they blame the gods as the authors of the ills which befall them (compare Republic): 'their own presumption,' or folly (whichever is ...
— Alcibiades II • An Imitator of Plato
... him away. Had she been indiscreet to take Sir Paul so quickly into her confidence? It was still not too late, probably, for a messenger to catch him at the Hotel du Rhin before he left. He was too much a gentleman, she knew, not to consider as unsaid the information she had given him, if she ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... spirits of the children, and they grew strangely quiet and sad. Madame de Barancy for a wonder was also very silent. She had something she wished to say, and she probably found some difficulty in selecting her words, for she left them unsaid until the last moment. Then she took Jack's hand in hers. "Listen, child, I have some bad news to ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... with unusual speed. Never in his life before had he felt the impulse to utter words of love to any woman, and now he was face to face with the sweet though dreaded ordeal. For weal or woe, he could not go back and leave them unsaid. He had planned to say about what he had to Uncle Terry, beginning with a brief history of his life, his income, his hopes, and ending with asking her to share them. But the fortress of a woman's heart is seldom assailed that way, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... fear written on Mrs. Tyler's face. Again he sensed the tension among the men who gathered at the wreck. And he believed Cap'n Mike had left some things unsaid in spite of ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... Immediately after the duel I obeyed your instructions, and went to see your lawyer, Delestong. With the exception of a few omissions, I was obliged to relate everything that happened. I must tell you exactly what I said and what I left unsaid, so that if we are summoned before the court ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... bear a heavier heart, And deem his love was fled; Because his soul from earth could part Leaving her name unsaid? ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... ought not to have said. Hamish thought all those sharp words were quite atoned for by Shenac's quick and earnest repentance, but there is a sense in which it is true that hasty and unkind words can never be unsaid. ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... found a name that took me, Quite by chance I came across it — 'Come-by-Chance' was what I read; No location was assigned it, not a thing to help one find it, Just an N which stood for northward, and the rest was all unsaid. ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... were I to speak. He might refuse to listen; he might move me to momentary indecision by manner, look, or words; I preferred to write it all down clearly, to make sure that what I had to say would not run the risk of being left unsaid through the interposition ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... more than I can see, And what I see I leave unsaid, Nor speak it, knowing Death has made ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... generalities do not carry us very far. Unless we can discover in further detail why marriages fail, these things were better left unsaid. I believe, however, we can discover many ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... the husband or the wife, who only look for love and favor from one another, nor need any instruction therein "how they are to stand toward each other, what they are to do, to leave undone, to say, to leave unsaid, to think." ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... discipline. It must of course be obeyed without a word, and perhaps in process of time it will tacitly recede from its own injunctions. In such cases the question of faith does not come in; for what is matter of faith is true for all times, and never can be unsaid. Nor does it at all follow, because there is a gift of infallibility in the Catholic Church, that therefore the power in possession of it is in all its proceedings infallible. "O, it is excellent," ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... runs something like this: No matter how sincere and confidential men are in trying to know or assuming that they do know each other's mood and habits of thought, the net result leaves a feeling that all is left unsaid; for the reason of their incapacity to know each other, though they use the same words. They go on from one explanation to another but things seem to stand about as they did in the beginning "because of that vicious assumption." But ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... walked on a little in advance of them, as proud as a queen. Had Lady de Courcy herself met her at this moment, she would almost have felt herself forced to shrink out of the pathway. "Not say a word of me!" she repeated to herself, but still out loud. "No word need be left unsaid on my account; ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... no question. Her woman's instinct told her much that Rosanne had left unsaid. Within half an hour, Harlenden was being shown into the drawing-room, where she awaited him. He came in with no sign upon his face of the anxiety in his heart. This was the fourth day since he had seen Rosanne, and she had sent ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... the right thing in the right place, but, far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... wished she had not spoken so warmly in their last conversation. She was afraid she had used some strong, some contemptuous expressions in speaking of the clergy, and that should not have been. It was ill-bred; it was wrong. She wished such words unsaid with all her heart. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... something masculine in the directness of it, and yet there was no doubt that she had been pleased. In closing, she looked forward to seeing him back at Woodbridge when the war was over. There had been no fine writing about his Going to the Flag. Tom had been impressed by the amount left unsaid, and he had saved the letter until, in moving about, it had been lost. He was annoyed when he missed it, but on second thought he wondered if it were not just as well. For, on later inspection, it might not have proved so remarkable, ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... dear," Jane said to him, softly. "It was not what he said just then that pleased me, but what he left unsaid." ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... gone without speaking. Whatever he had wished to say would remain unsaid forever. Charles laid him down, and stood a long time looking at the set face. The likeness to Raymond seemed to be fading away under the touch of the Mighty Hand, but the look of ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... and keep it still; Lean on it safely; not a period Shall be unsaid for me. Against the threats Of malice or of sorcery, or that power Which erring men call Chance, this I hold firm: Virtue may be assailed, but never hurt, Surprised by unjust force, but not enthralled; ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... little winds, the friendly moon And sun attend in turn his rest. They linger above him, softly moving. They are gracious, And gently-wise: as though remembering how his hunger, His kinship, knew them once but blindly In thoughts unsaid, As a dream ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... try. But I am yours always—remember that——" He had kissed her hand and held it for a moment against his heart. Then he had left her, and Becky had wanted to call him back and say something that she felt had been left unsaid, but had found that ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... ever since the brief words at the hitching rails and the singing of the "Gypsy Trail," that whenever their eyes looked into each other's it was with a mutual knowledge of unsaid things. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... to write her first letter to Lancelot in high spirits, then, to tell him her little bits of news and to remind him (really to remind herself) of good days in the past holiday-time. Something she may have said, or left unsaid, as the chance may be, drew the following reply. She always wrote to him on Friday, so that he ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... members of that race. But the reader of Rhodes's history will look in vain for anything that will give him accurate information along these lines. His history, therefore, is remarkable, not only for what it says, but for what it leaves unsaid. In fact, it is plain to the intelligent reader that he started out with preconceived notions as to what the facts were or should have been, and that he took particular pains to select such data and so to color the same as to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... never wounded. When he took leave of Lord Dudley, the latter said, "You have been laughing at me constantly, Sydney, for the last seven years, and yet in all that time, you never said a thing to me that I wished unsaid." ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... have spoken remained unsaid, for crack, crack, crack! sounding smothered amongst the trees, came the reports of the rifles and the replies made by Don Ramon's vedettes as they were driven in, and the skipper's eyes flashed as he placed a little whistle to his ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... there was something dreadful about it all. A sweet nature is always rather dreadful when it turns and strikes, and Annie struck with the whole force of a nature with a foundation of steel. She left nothing unsaid. She defended herself and she accused her sisters as if before a judge. Then came ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... things which hurt most can't be punished by law Rack of secrecy, the cruelest inquisition of life Sardonic pleasure in the miseries of the world Sympathy, with curiousness in their eyes and as much inhumanity Thanked him in her heart for the things he had left unsaid There is something humiliating in even an undeserved injury There was never a grey wind but there's a greyer Uses up your misery and makes you tired (Work) We care so ...
— Quotations From Gilbert Parker • David Widger
... Sir Knight, you undervalue the wine we have quaffed. The high flavour and contents of your cup, grow where it will, give me spirit to tell you one or two circumstances, which cold cautious sobriety would, in a moment like this, have left unsaid. You wish, I doubt not, to know who I am? My Christian name is Michael—my surname is that of Turnbull, a redoubted clan, to whose honours, even in the field of hunting or of battle, I have added something. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... that word unsaid, for it ruined him. It woke Colonel John Forney up to the very highest pitch of his fighting "Injun," or, as they say in Pennsylvania, his "Dutch." He had always been to that hour a genial man, like most politicians, a little too much given to the social ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... weariness and disabilities they put themselves on the road, and have come, and fulfilled their obedience: and although desire constrains them to return to their cells, they are not therefore willing to throw off the yoke, but say: "What I have said, be it unsaid!" —disregarding their self-will and their personal consolations. One comes here to endure: not for honours, but for the dignity of many labours, with tears, vigils and continual prayers; thus should one do. Now let us not ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... to say something which I do not care to keep unsaid longer than I can help; so I thought it better to come when I could hope to find you alone. I hope I have not disturbed you. I have something rather important ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... than this what moves me most of all To leave not all unworded and unsped The whole heart's greeting of my thanks unsaid Scarce needs this sign, that from my tongue should fall His name whom sorrow and reverent love recall, The sign to friends on earth of that dear head Alive, which now long since untimely dead The wan grey waters covered for a ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... late, since the disturbance about Philip's father, both Jemima and her mother were too distrait, too absorbed in their own affairs, to pay much attention to Jacqueline. Whatever confidences trembled on her lips, remained unsaid. She felt that they had more important things to think about. Once, indeed, she had ventured to join her voice to that of the Victrola in the mad scene from "Lucia," acting at the same time her conception of the part; and her ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... yourself!" said Tommy rudely, suddenly awaking to the fact that he was being dictated to; then pulled up, faintly grinning. "Sorry: I didn't mean that. You're a brick. Consider it unsaid! Good-bye!" ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... priest wake with fright Because the wind is high tonight? Because the yellow moonlight dead Lies silent as a word unsaid— What dreams had ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... last conversation with Grady, though it left him a good deal to think out afterward. He had acted quite deliberately, had said nothing that afterward he wished unsaid; but as yet he had not decided what to do next. After he heard the door slam behind the little delegate, he walked back into his room, paced the length of it two or three times, then put on his ulster and went out. He started off aimlessly, paying no attention to whither ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... and we might have slipped When came your rumours and your sales And the foiled rich men, feeble-lipped, Said and unsaid their sorry tales; Great God! It needs a bolder brow To keep ten sheep inside a pen, And we are sheep no longer now; You are but Masters. We ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... incomplete parting is the best, that which has many things unsaid, silences which are not silent; because it leaves room for the imagination, lets us gild the picture in the roses ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... confessions only such things as he conceives to be of import to God, it happens, naturally, that St. Augustine leaves unsaid many things that would have interested most men, perhaps more. 'What, then, have I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions—as if they could heal my infirmities,—a race curious to know the lives of others, slothful to amend their own?' Finding, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... because I believe you. But such things are better left unsaid. They seem to belong to the art of pleasing, which you will perhaps soon be tempted to practise, because it seems to ail young people easy, well paid, amiable, and a mark of good breeding. In truth it is vulgar, cowardly, egotistical, and insincere: a virtue in a ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... right. I was wrong to speak at present. I cannot conceive what impelled me; it was neither the time nor the place. I beg you to consider everything unsaid, if you can, and I especially beg you not to mention this conversation in your note to Mr. Denham. The one important thing now is to have proper medical attendance for your niece. The rest will take ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... I ask your pardon if, being vexed and wearied, I said to you and of you to-day what I now wish I had left unsaid. I know well that you, being of the gentle blood of Egypt, will make no report of what ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... perhaps presumed too far in trespassing on your attention, and in giving way to my own thoughts; but I was unwilling to leave any thing unsaid which might induce you to consider with favour the request I was anxious to make, in the name of all whose state of mind I have described, that you would at times regard us more particularly in your instructions. I cannot judge to what ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... unsaid between us; Then asked he: "How long is it since thou camest O'er the far ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... him, but the thing had been said and could never be unsaid, and Bertha Kircher knew even more surely than as though he had fallen upon his knees and protested undying devotion that the ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to account for his incandescent certainty that she had lied. The mere unconscious synthesis of the things she had said and left unsaid along the earlier stages of their talk, would have amounted to a demonstration. Her moment of panic over his discovery that she was saying good-by, her irrespressible shudder at the question whether ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... unsaid, Before the change appears? Remember, all their gifts have fled With those ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... says he, releasing her roughly. "Nothing I could say would convince or move you. And yet, I know it is no use, but I am determined I will leave nothing unsaid. I will give you no loop-hole. I asked her to go with me in a moment of irritation, of loneliness, if you will; it is hard for a man to be forever outside the pale of affection, and I thought—well, it is no matter what I thought. I was wrong it seems. As for caring for ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... it no quarter, is already conqueror in Christ, or will soon be—and more than innocent. But our good feelings, those that make for righteousness and unity, we ought to let shine; they claim to commune with the light in others. Many parents hold words unsaid which would lift hundred-weights from the hearts of their children, yea, make them leap for joy. A stern father and a silent mother make mournful, or, which is far worse, hard children. Need I add that, if any one, hearing ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... has barnacles; the United States is a big ship, and she keeps her engine going and her speed up and in the main her prow headed to a big destiny. It ill becomes a little ship to bark out—but let it be left unsaid! ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... sighed over both letters. They both left so much unsaid. They were wrapped up in their ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... succeeded by a warm blush which denoted a yet stronger and warmer emotion. The keen eyes of William Hinkley understood the meaning of this significant but unsyllabling mode of utterance, and his eyes spoke the reproach to hers which his lips left unsaid:— ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... whiteness, the coral's red, From the brow and the lip of my beautiful dead Their soft tints stole when her spirit fled; And it seems to me that sweet words, unsaid By my darling, gleam through the light ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... when the news of his passing was flashed across from the England that he scorned to the Ireland that he loved. It may be that those who had reviled him and cast the wounding word against him had then their moment of regret and the wish that what had been heatedly spoken might be unsaid, but those who loved him and who were loyal to the end found no consolation beyond this, that they had stood, with leal hearts and true, beside the man who had found Ireland broken, maimed and dispirited and ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... might write a column of praise, and even then there would be something unsaid of their merit. They are good in every ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... is true, for instance, of such cardinal books as the four Gospels. Respecting these matters enough is said to show that human hands have been employed to write the books of Scripture, while so much has been left unsaid that we must infer that this kind of information is of little moment by reason of the internal evidence the Scriptures contain of their divine authorship. Such evidence, it seems to me, is especially given by the fact that the Scriptures present a faithful transcript of {6} the world as it has ...
— An Essay on the Scriptural Doctrine of Immortality • James Challis
... of speech? Silence were fitter: Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid. Though all the words we ever spake were bitter, ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... Gregoire left unsaid was that he repaired to the enclosure in order that he might there join Therese, the miller's fair-haired daughter with the droll, laughing face, who was also a terribly adventurous damsel for her thirteen years. True, their meetings were but childish play, but at the end of the enclosure, ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... to love and youth, the foolish things they said and left unsaid told them whispers of the wonderful things which were to be. Michael was too exacting in his demands to allow of sustained conversation; sentences lost themselves in "one more kiss," or in one more bewildering meeting ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... which Judge Douglas thinks I would not make where there was any Abolition element. I only refer to this matter to say that I am altogether unconscious of having attempted any double-dealing anywhere; that upon one occasion I may say one thing, and leave other things unsaid, and vice versa, but that I have said anything on one occasion that is inconsistent with what I have said elsewhere, I deny, at least I deny it so far as the intention is concerned. I find that I have devoted to this topic a larger portion of my time than I had intended. I wished ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... diffident and fearful; but it must now find a voice, to which may Evelyn benignly listen. What I leave unsaid—would that my ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... at the quicksand. The retrospect is now complete. I may leave the miserable story of Rosanna Spearman—to which, even at this distance of time, I cannot revert without a pang of distress—to suggest for itself all that is here purposely left unsaid. I may pass from the suicide at the Shivering Sand, with its strange and terrible influence on my present position and future prospects, to interests which concern the living people of this narrative, and to events which were already paving my way for the slow and toilsome journey ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... flow of the Seine. Nick Dormer said it made him think of the old Paris, of the great Revolution, of Madame Roland, quoi! Gabriel said they could have watery beer but were not obliged to drink it. They sat a long time; they talked a great deal, and the more they said the more the unsaid came up. Presently Nash found occasion to throw out: "I go about my business ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... satisfied than himself. I was unprepared for so abrupt a departure; and as I had still much to say to him on the subject of our disagreement, I find myself compelled to the exercise of my clerkly skill, and am now occupied in telling him in writing all that I had left unsaid. There is the letter," she continued with a bitter smile, as she threw the ample scroll across the table; "read it, and tell me if I have not more than sufficient cause to consider myself both aggrieved ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... to those who have condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them: you think that I was convicted because I had no words of the sort which would have procured my acquittal—I mean, if I had thought fit to leave nothing undone or unsaid. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction was not of words—certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to do, weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... gesture of quiet disdain, expressive of all he left unsaid. What was the use of journeying to a land of doubt and rebellion? Did not Rome suffice—Rome, which governed the world—the Eternal City which, when the times should be accomplished, would become the capital of the world ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Marble, and not I, who made this speech; and yet I heartily wished it unsaid. It made me feel foolish and I dare say it made me look foolish; and I know it caused Emily to blush. Poor girl! she, who blushed so easily, and was so sensitive, and so delicately situated—she was entitled to have more respect paid to her feelings. The Major and Marble, however, took ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Sir Hugh, at the mirk midnight, I cannot sleep in my bed, Now, unless my tale can be told aright, I wot it were best unsaid; It lies, the blood of yon northern knight, On my lady's hand ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... from distant lands, Describes strange climes and visions passing fair, Yet deftly hides from others' eyes and hands A private casket filled with treasures rare, So, favored Countess, all that thou dost say Is nothing to thy secrets left unsaid; Thy printed souvenirs are but the spray Above the depths of ocean's briny bed. For, oh! how often must thy mind retrace Soft phrases whispered in the Tuscan tongue, Love's changes sweeping o'er his mobile face, And kisses sweeter far ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... dear loving heart and true, For golden years are fleeting by, and youth is passing, too; Ah! learn to make the most of life, nor lose one happy day, For time will ne'er return sweet joys neglected, thrown away; Nor leave one tender word unsaid, thy kindness sow broadcast— "The mill will never grind again ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... work is so divinely perfect and absolutely final that all human attempts at interpretation, which are devoid of faith, are an insult to Him. He is the One who wrote the Word, and so He knows the meaning, not only of what He said, but even of what He left unsaid, and therefore none but He can interpret either the words or the silences ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... woman's, and that, gloating over voluptuous and ghoulish imaginings he may have found an atrocious pleasure in giving over to the headsman those dainty, desirable limbs,—this is perhaps a thing better left unsaid, but one which no one can deem impossible who knows what men are. Evariste Gamelin, cold and pedantic in his artistic creed, could see no beauty but in the Antique; he admired beauty, but it hardly stirred his senses. His classical taste was so severe he rarely ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... "entirely vanished," in the sense of "all told,"— is contemptuously applied to verses in which the verse-maker has uttered his whole thought;—praise being reserved for compositions that leave in the mind the thrilling of a something unsaid. Like the single stroke of a temple-bell, the perfect short poem should set murmuring and undulating, in the mind of the hearer, many a ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... long silence after this. Mrs Snow knew well that Graeme sat without reply because she would not have the conversation come back to her, or to home affairs, again. But her friend had something more to say, and though her heart ached for the pain she might give, she could not leave it unsaid. ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... up at her in silence. But the girl's eyes glowed with things unsaid and inexpressible—the "eternal passion, eternal pain," which in half the human ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... use of my house as your own, sir," he said gravely. "From what you leave unsaid, I gather that things are more serious than the papers would have us believe. Under those circumstances, I need not assure you that any help we can render is ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Captain to his knees. "By the God who made the Jews," he swore, "I leave not this raw flagstone till you have unsaid those words!" ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... well! "My God, what am I to do!" And, turning impulsively, he was about to fling himself at her feet, beseeching of her to confide her trouble, but something in her appearance prevented him, and in dismay he wondered what he had said to provoke such a change. What had been said could not be unsaid, the essential was that the ugly thought upon her like some nightmare should be forgotten. Now what could he say to win her out of this dreadful gloom? If ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... and fight it down—she was shaken with a shy, quivering ecstasy, a hesitant sweetness of need and longing that pulsed through every nerve of her. The thought of the morrow almost frightened her. He would come to-morrow—come to tell her all that he had left unsaid, to claim that promise of surrender which a woman both loves and fears ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... in all Lanier's verse a fragmentariness, a sense of something left unsaid, which we may understand better if we remember that his heart was filled with the noblest emotions, but that when he strove to write them his pen failed for weariness. Read the daily miracle of dawn in "Sunrise," for example, and find there the waiting oaks, the stars, the tide, the marsh with ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the spot. The committee told me to choose my own subject and they would endorse anything I would say—without recourse. They delicately intimated, however, that any playful allusions to the City Bank better be left unsaid; and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various |
